Selected Stories

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Lottie didn’t want to play that, because last time Pip had squeezed something down her throat and it hurt awfully.

“Pooh,” scoffed Pip. “It was only the juice out of a bit of mandarin peel.”

“Well, let’s play ladies,” said Isabel. “Pip can be the father and you can be all our dear little children.”

“I hate playing ladies,” said Kezia. “You always make us go to church hand in hand and come home and go to bed.”

Suddenly Pip took a filthy handkerchief out of his pocket. “Snooker! Here, sir,” he called. But Snooker, as usual, tried to sneak away, his tail between his legs. Pip leapt on top of him, and pressed him between his knees.

“Keep his head firm, Rags,” he said, and he tied the handkerchief round Snooker’s head with a funny knot sticking up at the top.

“Whatever is that for?” asked Lottie.

“It’s to train his ears to grow more close to his head—see?” said Pip. “All fighting dogs have ears that lie back. But Snooker’s ears are a bit too soft.”

“I know,” said Kezia. “They are always turning inside out. I hate that.”

Snooker lay down, made one feeble effort with his paw to get the handkerchief off, but finding he could not, trailed after the children, shivering with misery.

IX

Pat came swinging along; in his hand he held a little tomahawk that winked in the sun.

“Come with me,” he said to the children, “and I’ll show you how the kings of Ireland chop the head off a duck.”

They drew back–they didn’t believe him, and besides, the Trout boys had never seen Pat before.

“Come on now,” he coaxed, smiling and holding out his hand to Kezia.

“Is it a real duck’s head? One from the paddock?”

“It is,” said Pat. She put her hand in his hard dry one, and he stuck the tomahawk in his belt and held out the other to Rags. He loved little children.

“I’d better keep hold of Snooker’s head if there’s going to be any blood about,” said Pip, “because the sight of blood makes him awfully wild.” He ran ahead dragging Snooker by the handkerchief.

“Do you think we ought to go?” whispered Isabel. “We haven’t asked or anything. Have we?”

At the bottom of the orchard a gate was set in the paling fence. On the other side a steep bank led down to a bridge that spanned the creek, and once up the bank on the other side you were on the fringe of the paddocks. A little old stable in the first paddock had been turned into a fowl-house. The fowls had strayed far away across the paddock down to a dumping ground in a hollow, but the ducks kept close to that part of the creek that flowed under the bridge.

Tall bushes overhung the stream with red leaves and yellow flowers and clusters of blackberries. At some places the stream was wide and shallow, but at others it tumbled into deep little pools with foam at the edges and quivering bubbles. It was in these pools that the big white ducks had made themselves at home, swimming and guzzling along the weedy banks.

Up and down they swam, preening their dazzling breasts, and other ducks with the same dazzling breasts and yellow bills swam upside down with them.

“There is the little Irish navy,” said Pat, “and look at the old admiral there with the green neck and the grand little flagstaff on his tail.”

He pulled a handful of grain from his pocket and began to walk towards the fowl-house, lazy, his straw hat with the broken crown pulled over his eyes.

“Lid. Lid—lid—lid—lid—” he called.

“Qua. Qua—qua—qua—qua—” answered the ducks, making for land, and flapping and scrambling up the bank they streamed after him in a long waddling line. He coaxed them, pretending to throw the grain, shaking it in his hands and calling to them until they swept round him in a white ring.

From far away the fowls heard the clamour and they too came running across the paddock, their heads thrust forward, their wings spread, turning in their feet in the silly way fowls run and scolding as they came.

Then Pat scattered the grain and the greedy ducks began to gobble. Quickly he stooped, seized two, one under each arm, and strode across to the children. Their darting heads and round eyes frightened the children—all except Pip.

“Come on, sillies,” he cried, “they can’t bite. They haven’t any teeth. They’ve only got those two little holes in their beaks for breathing through.”

“Will you hold one while I finish with the other?” asked Pat. Pip let go of Snooker. “Won’t I? Won’t I? Give us one. I don’t mind how much he kicks.”

He nearly sobbed with delight when Pat gave the white lump into his arms.

There was an old stump beside the door of the fowl-house. Pat grabbed the duck by the legs, laid it flat across the stump, and almost at the same moment down came the little tomahawk and the duck’s head flew off the stump. Up the blood spurted over the white feathers and over his hand.

When the children saw the blood they were frightened no longer. They crowded round him and began to scream. Even Isabel leaped about crying: “The blood! The blood!” Pip forgot all about his duck. He simply threw it away from him and shouted, “I saw it. I saw it,” and jumped round the wood block.

Rags, with cheeks as white as paper, ran up to the little head, put out a finger as if he wanted to touch it, shrank back again and then again put out a finger. He was shivering all over.

Even Lottie, frightened little Lottie, began to laugh and pointed at the duck and shrieked: “Look, Kezia, look.”

“Watch it!” shouted Pat. He put down the body and it began to waddle—with only a long spurt of blood where the head had been; it began to pad away without a sound towards the steep bank that led to the stream … That was the crowning wonder.

“Do you see that? Do you see that?” yelled Pip. He ran among the little girls tugging at their pinafores.

“It’s like a little engine. It’s like a funny little railway engine,” squealed Isabel.

But Kezia suddenly rushed at Pat and flung her arms round his legs and butted her head as hard as she could against his knees.

“Put head back! Put head back!” she screamed.

When he stooped to move her she would not let go or take her head away. She held on as hard as she could and sobbed: “Head back! Head back!” until it sounded like a loud strange hiccup.

“It’s stopped. It’s tumbled over. It’s dead,” said Pip.

Pat dragged Kezia up into his arms. Her sun-bonnet had fallen back, but she would not let him look at her face. No, she pressed her face into a bone in his shoulder and clasped her arms round his neck.

The children stopped screaming as suddenly as they had begun. They stood round the dead duck. Rags was not frightened of the head any more. He knelt down and stroked it now.

“I don’t think the head is quite dead yet,” he said. “Do you think it would keep alive if I gave it something to drink?”

But Pip got very cross: “Bah! You baby.” He whistled to Snooker and went off.

When Isabel went up to Lottie, Lottie snatched away.

“What are you always touching me for, Isabel?”

“There now,” said Pat to Kezia. “There’s the grand little girl.”

She put up her hands and touched his ears. She felt something. Slowly she raised her quivering face and looked. Pat wore little round gold ear-rings. She never knew that men wore ear-rings. She was very much surprised.

“Do they come on and off?” she asked huskily.

X

Up in the house, in the warm tidy kitchen, Alice, the servant girl, was getting the afternoon tea. She was “dressed.” She had on a black stuff dress that smelt under the arms, a white apron like a large sheet of paper, and a lace bow pinned on to her hair with two jetty pins. Also her comfortable carpet slippers were changed for a pair of black leather ones that pinched her corn on her little toe something dreadful …

It was warm in the kitchen. A blow-fly buzzed, a fan of whity steam came out of the kettle, and the lid kept up a rattling jig as the water bubbled. The clock ticked in the warm air, slow and deliberate, like the click of an old woman’s knitting needle, and sometimes—for no reason at all, for there wasn’t any breeze—the blind swung out and back, tapping the window.

Alice was making water-cress sandwiches. She had a lump of butter on the table, a barracouta loaf, and the cresses tumbled in a white cloth.

But propped against the butter dish there was a dirty, greasy little book, half unstitched, with curled edges, and while she mashed the butter she read:

“To dream of black-beetles drawing a hearse is bad. Signifies death of one you hold near or dear, either father, husband, brother, son, or intended. If beetles crawl backwards as you watch them it means death from fire or from great height such as flight of stairs, scaffolding, etc.

“Spiders. To dream of spiders creeping over you is good. Signifies large sum of money in near future. Should party be in family way an easy confinement may be expected. But care should be taken in sixth month to avoid eating of probable present of shell fish …”

How many thousand birds I see.

Oh, life. There was Miss Beryl. Alice dropped the knife and slipped the Dream Book under the butter dish. But she hadn’t time to hide it quite, for Beryl ran into the kitchen and up to the table, and the first thing her eye lighted on were those greasy edges. Alice saw Miss Beryl’s meaning little smile and the way she raised her eyebrows and screwed up her eyes as though she were not quite sure what that could be. She decided to answer if Miss Beryl should ask her: “Nothing as belongs to you, Miss.” But she knew Miss Beryl would not ask her.

Alice was a mild creature in reality, but she had the most marvellous retorts ready for questions that she knew would never be put to her. The composing of them and the turning of them over and over in her mind comforted her just as much as if they’d been expressed. Really, they kept her alive in places where she’d been that chivvied she’d been afraid to go to bed at night with a box of matches on the chair in case she bit the tops off in her sleep, as you might say.

“Oh, Alice,” said Miss Beryl. “There’s one extra to tea, so heat a plate of yesterday’s scones, please. And put on the Victoria sandwich as well as the coffee cake. And don’t forget to put little doyleys under the plates—will you? You did yesterday, you know, and the tea looked so ugly and common. And, Alice, don’t put on that dreadful old pink and green cosy on the afternoon teapot again. That is only for the mornings. Really, I think it ought to be kept for the kitchen—it’s so shabby, and quite smelly. Put on the Japanese one. You quite understand, don’t you?”